Catching Up
by darkpaladin89
Summary: One-shot short. By request from PhantomDave. Celes and Sabin catch up a little bit over a meal as they journey from Mobliz to Nikeah post-Cataclysm.


**The Serpent Trench, somewhere south of Mobliz…**

"That… was one close shave," Celes mused while using a bit of Magic to get a campfire going. She and Sabin had just left from Mobliz, where they found Terra. In the year since the Cataclysm, it seems she had lost her will to fight, and it was a small miracle they got to Humbaba before it could deal her a deathblow.

"You ain't kiddin'," Sabin replied. "I never thought I'd see Terra of all people that… I don't even have a word for it."

Sabin put together what food they found, which wasn't much, on their way to Nikeah, and prepared it for cooking. They had heard from someone in Tzen that ships still sail between there and South Figaro, which gave them a glimmer of hope that the rest of their friends might still be out there… somewhere. Celes herself had just found Sabin in Tzen not that long ago, where he kept a house from falling in on itself while she ran in and rescued a trapped child. Kefka had gotten his hands on quite the power a year prior, after the incident at the Floating Continent, and had few if any qualms about using it on anyone who irritated him - and at that particular moment, someone in Tzen had fit that bill.

"We've seen Terra, and you said you found a bird bandaged with Locke's bandana?" Sabin inquired of Celes.

"I did, and the wound was healed if not re-feathered. It had to have been done rather recently," Celes reasoned. "That means he was alive not too long ago and probably still is!"

What little meat they had managed to put together from various monsters went over the fire first, cooking quickly on the skewers Sabin had made of what few branches were still left, and Celes was in the process of getting some wild vegetables ready to follow them. Little seemed to want to grow in this dark and dangerous new world, so they both took care not to waste any of the precious nourishment they could obtain from the wilderness.

Celes thought out loud, "Did you hear about Figaro Castle in Albrook?" Sabin responded, "I'd bet anything we'll find Edgar somewhere between here and there. I just hope he didn't somehow wind up trapped in there himself."

Sabin swapped out the now-done meat for the vegetables, which likewise didn't take long at all to roast to perfection.

"You said you were unconscious for a year, was it?" Sabin asked of Celes.

"Yes, and Cid and a few others took care of me the whole time, but…" She couldn't finish without choking up. After she regained consciousness, she ran herself ragged trying to keep Cid alive, he being the other of the last of the survivors on that tiny island (and, for all either of them knew at the time, anywhere in the world), but to no avail. She had, in her distress, acted quite rashly at that point, although she survived, awakening to the bird bandaged with Locke's bandana, which restored her hope that someone out there was still alive. It was then that she found a note from Cid and the raft he had built before she had come to.

"Cid…? Oh. Oh! Oh no… I'm so sorry, Celes," was all Sabin dared to say as her meaning had dawned on him. He could see what an impact this had on her and didn't particularly care to make it worse. Having met Cid but once, during the Returners' raid on the Magitek Research Facility a year earlier, he knew little of him except an inkling of how close they had been when Celes was younger and, by extension, how hard losing him under those circumstances had to have been.

"I do miss him terribly, but… if he had lived, I might never have found you or Terra. And I know we'll find the others, somehow. They're still alive somewhere. I can feel it in my bones!" Celes said. "And once we have everyone back together, Kefka's finished. We… we can do this. I just know it."

Sabin piped up, "That's the spirit! Now let's tuck in before it gets cold." After they ate and cleaned up, Sabin put up a tent and they decided between them who would keep first watch while the other slept. The trek to Mobliz and the hullaballoo there really left them ragged, so they settled in, Sabin in the tent and Celes keeping watch at first, even before sunset. They knew they had a long slog ahead of them.


End file.
